Chapter 4
We found an open window leading to the kitchen of one of the restaurants at the food court. It was opened far enough for me to crawl through using my rat morph, and it was on the first floor, so we could easily drop the Dracon beam inside first.
Since none of us had come up with any better idea, we decided to go for it. I flew back to the alley where Cassie and I had left our things, demorphed, and put my clothes back on. I'd have to just walk back to the alley with the kitchen window, because the Dracon beam would be too heavy and too obvious to carry as a seagull. So I put the Dracon beam in the shopping bag along with Cassie's clothes, and started walking back.
Man, I looked like a homeless person. My clothes were stained from the inside of the shopping bag, and the bag itself wasn't helping. But I didn't stand out too much. No one paid any attention to me as I went from alley to alley.
I hesitated when I got back to the kitchen window. Marco was right; this could easily turn into a suicide mission for all of us. Then again, that goes for pretty much every mission we go on.
No time to think about it. There'll be plenty of time to do that during the nightmares that are sure to follow. So I morphed to rat.
≺Can you guys hear me? Are you ready?≻ I asked my friends before I went inside.
≺We hear you, and we're ready,≻ Marco responded. He didn't exactly sound happy about it, but when we decide to go for a mission, we all have to do our part, even when we don't agree with it. Marco understood that.
I could feel that his thoughts were distant, but they were still clear. We never quite figured out the exact range of thought-speak, but it isn't infinite.
≺Okay, I'm in my rat morph, heading for the window now.≻
I morphed back out as soon as I got inside, not giving my rat instincts time to take over with all the tasty smells of an abandoned kitchen. Then I immediately morphed Hork-Bajir.
Morphing in rapid succession like that is tiring like you won't believe, but sometimes it has to be done. I wasn't going as fast as I could though. I knew free lives were at stake, but I didn't want to tire myself too much before the action even started.
Fortunately, Hork-Bajir have great endurance. I didn't feel as tired anymore when the Hork-Bajir brain joined mine. But that was about the only thing I felt. The smarter the being, the less powerful its instincts seem to be. And fortunately we don't get the conscious part of a morph's brain.
I picked up the Dracon beam, then found my way through the kitchen to the food court. From there, I could see the plaza, where the Hork-Bajir had lined up their unconscious victims, and from where Visser Three was observing. He was in his natural Andalite form. It's hard to tell emotions from an Andalite face, especially at such a distance, but it was a safe bet that he was not happy about the situation.
≺Hurry up,≻ I heard him yell at one of the Hork-Bajir as she was trying to pick up one of the… wider people. ≺The longer this place stays locked down, the more attention we draw to ourselves!≻
Thought-speak can be directed to only those people who you want to hear it. Or you can just shout to anyone in range. Visser Three almost always did the latter. Someone as powerful as him doesn't need to hide.
He could see me, so I had to fit in. I gingerly walked over to the closest unconscious human I could find. There were so few people left! At least half of the people who were in here had already been taken down. We'd wasted way too much time already!
The person I found was a young girl. She was about my youngest sister Sarah's age. Her cheeks were still red and wet from crying before she was Draconed. I accidentally cut her arm shallowly with my elbow blade as I picked her up.
≺I'm so sorry about this,≻ I thought-spoke to her alone. She wouldn't have heard me, of course, unconscious and all. But I felt like I had to say something. If I'd have had to use my human voice to say it, I'd have choked up for sure.
I started heading for the tunnel entrance. Fortunately, Visser Three didn't notice that I was carrying only one small person, and the other Hork-Bajir didn't care enough to draw Visser Three's attention to them. There was no way I was going to pick up any more people.
≺I'm heading toward the tunnel entrance now!≻ I called to my friends. I suddenly realized that if their distraction wouldn't work, I was going to have to take her down to the pool and let the Yeerks infest her.
Well, that was never going to happen. I'd die first, and if that wasn't an option, I'd sooner mercy-kill the girl than let them do that to her.
Would I, though? Would I kill some 9-year old girl? Someone's daughter? Perhaps someone's sister? At least with a Yeerk inside her head, there'd still be hope for her. Suddenly my own thoughts sickened me.
Stop thinking about it, Rachel. You have a job to do, and if you do it right, you might still save this girl. Pay attention to what you're doing.
As I refocused on the task at hand, I realized something was wrong. There were no Hork-Bajir walking from the Yeerk pool back to the plaza. So where were they coming from?
Of course! The other entrance! There's two tunnels leading from the mall to the Yeerk pool, and they were using both to avoid having to deal with oncoming traffic. I'd have to knock out both of them to cut the mall off from the pool!
But it was too late to change the plan. I heard a loud crash coming from the entrance as Jake and Marco's rhinos ploughed right through it. I heard gunfire from outside, too. But normal police handguns don't do much against the thick skin of a rhino.
≺Andalites!≻ Visser Three yelled with utmost disgust, and everyone stopped.
≺All Hork-Bajir report to the mall immediately!≻ he added. The Hork-Bajir around me instantly dropped their victims and ran back. You don't question Visser Three's orders unless you're suicidal.
I guess I was a bit suicidal, going on this mission and all.
≺Visser Three, I have a deal for you,≻ I heard either Jake or Marco say. It was probably Jake, but I couldn't quite tell. ≺How about you just let these people go about their lives and cover this whole thing up with mass hallucinations, and –≻
≺How about I just kill you right here and now!≻ Visser Three fumed. But I didn't hear any Dracon beams. He hadn't given the order to fire yet.
Don't get distracted by the distraction, Rachel! Do what you came here to do! Get into position to at least destroy one of the tunnels!
I was almost at the tunnel entrance that the Hork-Bajir had escaped through. I carefully laid the girl down on the floor.
≺Because there's only two of us here,≻ I heard Jake or Marco respond. ≺The other four are in position at the Yeerk pool entrance, ready to blow it to pieces.≻
'The' entrance. I hadn't told my friends that the entrance which the Hork-Bajir had escaped from wasn't the one we knew about!
I bolted for the nearest tunnel entrance. Nuts to the biofilter. We'd decided that it was probably best for me to not go through the entrance, just in case the filter didn't work the way we thought it did. None of us ever really understand much of Ax's technobabble, and he hadn't been around to tell us whether it'd kill me or not in this particular case. But I had to go through. I wasn't going to get the chance to blow up two tunnels if Jake's attempt at diplomacy didn't work out. But I figured that the two tunnels might join into one before they reach the Yeerk pool, so maybe I could blow up the common part.
I could've yelled at Jake and Marco that there are two entrances. But it wouldn't have done them any good now. It'd distract them from Visser Three, and maybe I could still fix this.
I didn't know whether Visser Three was silent because he was carefully considering his options, not wanting to mess this up and lose us again, or because he was directing his thought-speak now, but I didn't hear him respond.
Doesn't matter. Find the fork in the tunnels. I was already through the biofilter (if there even was one there) when I snapped back out of my thoughts and looked around me again. Still alive. That's good.
≺Rachel, blow up the tunnel!≻ I heard in my head suddenly.
No! I'm not in position yet! Unless… Unless I blow up the tunnel behind me and double back through the other. If I could find it at all. I could get trapped in the Yeerk pool.
But I had to do it. Jake and Marco could be counting on the distraction caused by the explosion. So I took a shot and fired.
It just made a clean hole in the roof of the tunnel. I could see daylight shine through it.
No!
I shot again. That time it worked.
I hauled. I almost got covered by rubble as a large section of the tunnel collapsed. Still, a few dozen yards after the collapse, I figured, "what the hell," and took another shot behind me. More of the roof came hurtling down. Enough to kill the lights in the remaining part of the tunnel, so all I could see now was some faint light at the end of it. If there was a split ahead, I might not even see it.
I ran for the light. It was coming from the huge cavern that houses the Yeerk pool. When I emerged, I was greeted by a large amount of startled alien eyes, wondering what had caused all the noise in the tunnel. I guess Visser Three's and Jake's thought-speak didn't reach all the way here, otherwise they'd have realized.
I quickly looked around to get my bearings. Only a few yards to the left of me was another tunnel opening. Both tunnels shared the same staircase down to the pool area. There was a sparse line of Hork-Bajir walking up the stairs. The other tunnel to the mall, it must be!
"Visser Three orders retreat!" I yelled with all my power. Hork-Bajir can speak. Their own language isn't quite as advanced as English, so most of the time you'll hear Hork-Bajir speak a mixture of English and their own. Now, I didn't know any Hork-Bajir words, so I just used as few English words as I could. "Andalite bandits!" I added. That's what the Yeerks call us.
It was the kind of rash thing that I always end up doing in cases like these. The words left my mouth the millisecond I came up with them. I just wanted them out of that tunnel so I could do what I had to do without getting cornered, but there were a million ways in which that could have backfired. If they'd have called my bluff, I'd have been done for.
But they didn't. They believed me just long enough. Visser Three's arrogance and the fear he spreads among his underlings is going to be his downfall. No one dares to question his orders, even if they're passed on by someone else, and even if they don't make that much sense.
I stood there watching for a moment as four Hork-Bajir ran back out of the tunnel and got in combat formation around the entrance, along with some other Controllers that had heard me. Then I checked to make sure that the tunnel was clear and made a run for it.
"Hey!" I heard a Controller yell at me.
"She could be one of the Andalites, shoot her!" another Controller called.
But they were too late. I'd already shot the tunnel entrance behind me, and it collapsed just as he'd finished his sentence.
Except it didn't. Not enough. I looked back a second later and saw them hop over some rubble. They were after me!
TSEEEEEW, I heard. It wasn't from my Dracon beam. It also wasn't set to stun. It cut a big, gaping hole clean through my torso.
I didn't even feel any pain at first, but I fell. The nerves that used to control my legs no longer existed. Neither did my Hork-Bajir equivalent of a spine.
Only one thing I could still do. Shoot the ceiling behind me. Somehow, I managed.
Together with the damage at the entrance, it was enough to bring down the whole tunnel all the way from the Yeerk pool entrance to where I had fallen. There must have been casualties. Human and Hork-Bajir hosts would have been buried alive. And they couldn't morph to mole to escape.
I realized that I'd been pinned, too. My legs were crushed under a huge boulder. A layer of dirt had fallen over the rest of my body. I was so numb that couldn't really judge the weight of it.
The hole through my torso was big enough for the dirt to fall right through me and cover my alien insides. I was feeling it now. There are no words to express how much it stung. I was trying to scream, but there was no air left inside my lungs. Or maybe it was just that the insides of my lungs were covered in dirt now.
Remove the dirt, my mind raced. My right arm still worked and obeyed. Fortunately, the layer of dirt was only about an inch thick. I blinked some of it out of my eyes and saw with blurred vision that the tunnel ahead of me was still intact. Not buried alive, then.
Dying though. Morph!
It wasn't the first time that I'd morphed while half dead. It's not easy. Your mind just wants to fall asleep. It gets really hard to focus on anything, and you need to focus on what you want to morph in order for it to work.
But Hork-Bajir are tough. I'd never realized just how tough until now.
While morphing, I tried to pull myself further into the tunnel. You can't morph if there is no room for the body that you're morphing into, and my legs were still crushed underneath the rocks. But I was stuck. I could feel that my legs were already trying to change.
Remember how I mentioned that morphing doesn't hurt? Now it did.
My torso had already healed enough to let me scream. It came out as a weird mix of human and Hork-Bajir. I was going to lose my legs! And I wasn't sure if morphing back and forth would heal my human body.
Wait, lose my legs, that's it!
With all my might, I started morphing back to the Hork-Bajir from that weird half-way point. My Hork-Bajir torso came back mostly regenerated, but my legs were obviously still crushed. I was still stuck. But I was Hork-Bajir again, and at least I was no longer dying.
I grabbed the Dracon beam and pointed it back at my lower body. I was going to have to swing the beam around while holding the trigger down to make sure that it would cut my legs off completely. I rehearsed all the actions I'd need to take a couple times down to the finest details, to make sure I wouldn't mess it up. Then I looked away, closed my eyes, and did it.
It didn't hurt nearly as much as I'd expected it to. I guess I was in shock.
I pulled myself away from the boulder and started morphing human again. It was exhausting beyond belief. Combined with the seagull to human to rat to human to Hork-Bajir within five minutes thing that I'd pulled only, what, ten minutes ago? It was too much. I wouldn't be able to morph again anytime soon.
I had to get out. The Controllers would find me for sure if I stayed here.
I started heading down the tunnel. I could only manage a slow crawl at first, but at least I had legs again. I was slowly walking by the time I got to the exit.
BrrrrEEEEET! BrrrrEEEEET!
You have got to be kidding me.
"Unauthorized life-form detected."
That stupid biofilter thing was still active in this tunnel?!
Adrenaline is one hell of a drug. It had already been flowing through me, but that extra little bit was enough to get me focused again.
≺You five! Check out that alarm!≻ Visser Three was back in range.
Simultaneously, I heard Jake call, ≺That alarm! It could be Rachel! Combat morph. Go, go, go!≻
BrrrrEEEEET! BrrrrEEEEET! "Unauthorized life-form detected."
The secret entrance in front of me had shut the moment the alarm went off, designed to trap whoever or whatever triggered the alarm.
"Shut your eyes tightly to protect against retinal damage from the Gleet BioFilter."
I shot my Dracon beam at the secret entrance while already charging at it. The Dracon beam didn't do as much damage as I'd hoped, but it was enough for my body to burst out through it like the Hork-Bajir had. It hurt, but at least I was out of range of the biofilter. Just as I got out, the clothing store in front of me lit up from the blinding light that would have killed me if I hadn't.
"Drop your weapon!"
Three Hork-Bajir and two human Controllers all had their Dracon beams levelled at me.
"Go to hell!" was my carefully considered response.
I moved to point my Dracon beam at my closest target, and even managed to pull the trigger before they shot me. I missed, though. I saw the ground coming for me for a split-second before passing out.